IRS Prohibited By Law From Calling You an “Illegal Tax Protester”

Did you know that the
IRS
isn’t allowed to call you an “illegal tax protester?” Congress prohibited it
in 1998. Go figure. Not only that, but they can’t
use “any similar designation:”

14. (a) PROHIBITION. — The officers and employees of the Internal Revenue
Service — (1) shall not designate taxpayers as illegal tax protesters (or any
similar designation); and (2) in the case of any such designation made on or
before the date of the enactment of this Act — (A) shall remove such
designation from the individual master file; and (B) shall disregard any such
designation not located in the individual master file.

And the
IRS is
required to audit itself (go ahead and giggle) to see if it is complying with
this prohibition.

Here’s
their latest audit. It appears that “constitutionally challenged” is the
favorite internal
IRS
euphemism for tax protesters, as in the phrase “THESE TAXPAYERS ARE TO
BE CONSIDERED CONSTITUTIONALLY CHALLENGED AND SHOULD NOT BE INTERVIEWED OR
APPROACHED BY ANY
IRS EMPLOYEE
ALONE.”

Mueller is a tax protester who has done time and racked up tens of thousands
of dollars in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest in his protest of the
refusal of the
IRS to
acknowledge gay family structures in an equivalent way to straight ones.

In the course of telling Mueller’s story, Infanti allows himself to wander
over all sorts of interesting ground regarding tax resistance. For example,
I found out about the curious prohibition on “tax protester” labels at the
IRS by
reading this article. Here’s an excerpt about the history of tax protest in
the U.S.:

That a stigma is attached to the “tax protester” label may seem odd, given
that tax revolts and rebellions have played an important role in the history
of the United States. The Boston Tea Party, Shays’ Rebellion, the Whiskey
Rebellion, and Fries’ Rebellion were all tax protests. Indeed, the Boston Tea
Party and its protest of “taxation without representation” have become iconic
symbols in the United States. For example, to protest its lack of
representation in Congress, the District of Columbia allows its residents to
purchase license plates emblazoned with this slogan, and the District’s
delegates to the Democratic National Convention this year replicated the
original protest by dumping tea into Boston harbor.…

In addition, during the nineteenth century,
woman suffragists refused to pay taxes in order to protest their inability to
vote, metaphorically invoking the “no taxation without representation” slogan
from the Boston Tea Party.

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